Best Free Video Editing Program

Introduction

Whether you're a professional looking to save money, a student looking for a program to help with a school project, need software to organise and edit videos for your YouTube channels or just a person who likes making videos and needs an editor, then this page is for you. Note that other non-windows product like QuickTime works in a complicated manner in Windows OS, due to this Apple has discontinued production of QuckTime windows version as of January 2016.

I will also be here to address any issues you might have, in the comments section and on our forum. So please, if you need some help picking the right program or if you are an experienced video editor and feel that a specific free editor should be reviewed, because it has worked so well for you, let me know and hopefully, together, we can help everyone find the Best Free Video Editing Program for them!

Disclaimer: Be careful when approving the software(s) to install. Choosing custom installation will often give you the opportunity to see exactly what components the software is installing and choose which parts you do or do not want. Downloading free software on the internet is (usually) risky, so ALWAYS pay attention to exactly what you are downloading and where you are downloading it from; it's for your own machine's health!

Note: This category is regularly updated including the viewers inputs, so if you got good news share with us in the comments section so we can bring this to serve its utmost purpose.

Other Selections

This section holds other alternative software products that did not end up on the main list. This is because i am still running some tests and reviews on them. Hopefully they might end up on the main list if my final reviews have found them to be amongst one of the best. If one of these works best for your projects I am happy for you and would honestly like to hear about it in the comments section below.

Having a problem with DaVinci Resolve. The readme file says that Desktop Video is required. Downloaded Desktop Video. Installation license says it is "Subject to payment of applicable license fees". Installation then fails.
Tried to start Resolve anyhow. Window pops up saying it needs a license dongle, or you can download free from their site. Well, this is the free version from their site. Resolve then fails to start.
So far this isn't turning out to be very useful.

That's probably a technical problem within the website links on their servers, since it had you stuck in circles you would want to contact Davinci resolve support so that they can help you with this problem. sorry for any inconveniences.

As always I greatly appreciate the information from Gizmo.
Judging also from several other comments, I think it would be very helpful if each time you added information about the need and the efficieny of re-coding after the editing process. I have stopped using some great editors, because they have not kept up with the developments of hardware acceleration (e.g. CUDA.and now NVEC) and new efficient codecs, H.264 and now H.265 etc. It is quite frustrating, if this re-coding process takes hours, even one has just simply trimmed a video recording. .

Most freewares comes with such third parties or sometimes plug ins. Which is why you should be careful when running setup to choose custom installation and only install the products you require. It saves time and space.

Windows Movie Maker is good enough if you just need to add or remove frames, add titles, transitions, and background music. I do most of my editing using WMM. For slightly more complex stuff I use LightWorks. Not as easy to use, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty good. Love using it to do video overlaying/PIP.

As for the list, DaVinci Resolve is more of a post production type of editor. Has the most powerful color editor among free editors. Even beats Adobe Premiere, which is a paid product. But I don't use it often and uninstalled it.

Openshots just hates my Win10 laptop. It crashes too often. I was able to edit and export just one video successfully. Such a shame. I use it in Linux Mint and it was more stable there.

I was going to try Hitfilm 4 Express but its installer was way too big (430 MB download). With a small SSD, I can't afford to install too many big programs. LightWorks' installer is only 70MB, while fully installed it's about 250 MB.

Regarding the Windows Movie Maker program that is part of Windows Essentials 2012, Microsoft says, "Windows Essentials 2012 suite will reach end of support on January 10, 2017" and that it "will be available for download until it reaches its end of support date." (Source: "Windows Essentials 2012 Release Notes") That same page also says, "Movie Maker will soon be available from Windows Store for Windows 10 users"; however it doesn't say if that new version will be free or even if it will continue to be a standard desktop program. So, I'm now looking to replace Movie Maker.

Mesh, for your next reviews, I'd very much like to see your opinions of VSDC Free Video Editor, and Shotcut.

From a couple of other people's comments here, I think it would be helpful for a review to mention when QuickTime is used by a Windows program, and for the Introduction section to explain the significance of that issue.

It is sad that MS isn't doing anything with WMM and will probably abandon it on January 2017. Very easy to use when you just need to edit out scenes and add titles and music.

I've tried Shotcut. The installer is like 191MB but like H4E, it expanded to about 1GB upon installation! I would say that is it is somewhat easy to use once you've used another NLE. I am thankful for learning to use NLE with the hardest program in that category, LightWorks. Compared to LW, everything else is easy! Unlike Openshot, Shotcut is more stable in my Windows 10 machine. Encoding 1080p is slow, much slower than LW. I think it's worth more of a look but I had to uninstall it. I don't keep any programs that are more than 500MB.

I've installed Hitfilm 4 Express on my sister's desktop. While the installer is about 430MB, it expanded and used almost 1GB of HDD space! And it still asked me to install Quicktime to be able to edit .MOV files. Lightworks can also use Quicktime but it can edit .MOV files without it. Plus, did I say it only needed 250MB? It is also faster to launch.

But H4E is a bit easier to use than LW. They are both non-linear editors (NLE) and you can reuse many of the same editing skills on either program. LW is harder to use since the UI is pretty bare-bones, and assumes that you know your way around its non-intuitive menu. It also has an ever-present shark tooltip assistant. He is almost as annoying as the MS Paperclip, but a lot easier on the eyes.

H4E has a more updated UI, very visual, which makes it easier to learn. I also think that since I've already mastered the harder LW program, converting to H4E is a cinch. New users of NLE might have a higher learning curve. I would recommend H4E over LW to those who don't use small SSDs and aren't constrained by drive space; and to those who want learn to use it fast and start editing immediately.

But for myself, I'll have to make do with LW since I can't afford to give 1GB to a video editing app. I barely have 10GB left in my 128GB SSD.

This article is out of date.
Virtualdub is a relic that knows only .avi formats - it was good 10 years ago

The best free and powerful editor out there is Davinci Resolve 12.5 which is free in standard edition (not Studio) and has truly professional capabilities (I don't know how such a good software can be free). The single disadvantage: it needs QuickTime (there is not a video professional editor that works without QT unfortunately because they need ProRes); but, on installation QT is installed automatically (last version for Win) and then you can rename the player executable (e.g. add the .bak extension to the .exe) in Program Files, which is a security risk in Windows OS, and verify your browser plugins - QT must be disabled; this doesn't affect Resolve editor because it needs only the codecs from QT, not the video player.

Thanks, soon we will be updating this category, as you noticed some of the softwares are no longer as popular as new softwares have taken over. I am currently compiling a new list and will post it as soon as i am done with my research

Avidemux: Awesome program for a beginner. I'm experienced in computers, but just starting with video editing and right out of the box, I was able to cut out portions and get rid of black frames on my home movies.
One of the best wiki's I've seen.http://tinyurl.com/n4dsv2j
Also a very good forum: http://tinyurl.com/l5ul2kl

Perhaps it will be a bit more challenging as I get into more intricate editing, but just to get my home movies broken down into smaller chunks, it's been a breeze.